Athlete, Listen to the Church

Monty WaldronDecember 28, 2018

14,15"I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth."

1 Timothy 3:14,15 (ESV)

Hopefully you’re coming to the end of this week with renewed confidence that God is not giving you the silent treatment. In fact, it’s just the opposite. He is graciously and generously communicating with you and all of humanity through creation, the written Word, the Living Word, and His Holy Spirit.

All that we need to know to live in right relationship with God is contained within those four timeless outlets of grace and truth.

But God goes further still! As if His voice weren’t loud or clear enough already, God seeks to reveal Himself yet another way.

God speaks to His people through His people. And I’m not just talking about preachers! Read through the New Testament with an eye for passages related to our communication with each other.

Without a doubt, there is an expectation that what we say and how we say it to one another matters a great deal to God. My assumption is, the importance has to do with our role as God’s spokespersons.

As a community of faith – indwelt by the Spirit and informed by the Scriptures – we are living messengers! We’re called upon to preserve and proclaim what God has chosen to reveal about Himself, His redemptive plan, and how we might fruitfully walk in a manner worthy of His calling.

The apostle Paul put it like this, “I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these things to you so that, if I delay, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, a pillar and buttress of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:14,15).

We are stewards of God’s “voice” in the community of faith and charged with reminding each other of what is true. That is all the more reason to give and receive encouragement in our conversations with humility, gratitude and great expectation. Surely, God intends to use what we say to each other for our good and that of our mission.

We all desperately need to hear from God, and He is most definitely speaking. Like an all-star player with an all-world coach, make every effort to listen carefully and spread the word through the rest of the team.

“Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin” (Hebrews 3:12,13).